Abstrakt
In this article, I raise the question of Europe's identity. I argue that this is to be found in the living temporality that shapes its understanding.
Such temporality is overdetermined. It consists in a plurality of factors, which privilege the past, present, or the future respectively.
The past is dominant when the account of identity emphasizes the origin of things - be this sacred history or some decisive event from the past. The present is dominant, by contrast, when we use science to understand the past and the future - for example, when we use our current knowledge of evolutionary processes to describe our human origins.
In genuine political debate, however, the future is the decisive factor. Political debate is concerned with what should be done and which kind of future society should work to bring about.
All three temporal determinations shape European identity. This means that the living temporalization of Europe is over-determined and in conflict with itself.
Such over-determination is behind the shake-up that gives Europe its openness, in Patočka's sense. It is what provides the opening for the Socratic questioning that has unsettled the status quo throughout Europe's history.